Two Alive, стр. 102
After a long while of silence, Miles peered around the side of the tree and didn’t see anyone. Then he looked around the other side and didn’t see anyone. No one was there and the infected were gone. The boy sniffled and wiped his nose. He stood up, grabbed his knife and threw on his bag as he prepared to leave. He’d do like Antonio said and wait for his brother at the treehouse. He peered around the tree again and saw the big square jawed soldier, Castle, nearly a hundred yards away.
“Hey! Kid!” Castle screamed, crunching through the leaves with his heavy boots as he climbed over dead trees. “Hey kid! Where are you?”
Miles didn’t respond. He wouldn’t give away his position. The army man was way too close to finding him and seeing him. Miles ducked back when Castle looked in his direction.
“Wherever you are, I’m gonna find you. So you might as well come out.” Castle looked down the sights of his assault rifle and scanned the area. “Major Carver sent me out here to find your home and you’re going to take me to it kid. So just come out peacefully.”
Miles swallowed hard and cocked his rifle.
“You make this easy for me and I’ll be easy on you ok? We’re just trying to make sure you don’t have any people waiting to attack us or hurt any of us. If you got nothing to hide, then it won’t be any problems.” Castle looked left and right, spinning in circles as he continued through the woods. He turned when he heard leaves rustling and aimed his M4A1. “Damn it. C’mon kid! Come out already!” He was yelling louder.
“You have to stop getting loud!” Miles yelled back.
Castle looked around, not sure where the voice was coming from. “Kid? Where are you? Why don’t you just come out and we’ll go back to Julia and the others?”
“I can’t take you to my home.”
“Ha. Well you’re going to have to kid.”
“I can’t take you to my home because the old ma-- Mr. Johnathan said that no one can find where we live.”
“We don’t want to take nothing from you guys. We just want to make sure you’re not a threat. Where’s this Mr. Johnathan? Tell him to come out and talk to me.”
Miles sniffled and wiped his face. He leaned out from behind the tree and aimed his rifle at Castle’s head, tracking his movements. “He’s dead. He died a long time ago.”
Castle crept around, still looking for Miles and crouched under a low hanging branch. “I’m sorry to hear that. Why don’t you come out and we can go back to the others.”
“No. I’ m going home.”
“And I’ll go with you and keep you safe.”
“No!”
Castle stopped and turned around to where the shout came from, “I’m not going to hurt you kid.”
Miles watched him start walking towards his tree. “Go back now. Or… or I’ll shoot you.”
“You don’t want to do that kid. I’m a friend. Remember how we took out that hive? You don’t want to hurt a friend now do you?” Castle aimed his gun, looking down his sights as he moved forward.
“Please. Just go back. I don’t want to shoot you.”
“I don’t think you will because you would’ve done it already. You don’t want to kill anyone, do you. What happened with Bates was necessary and I respect that. But I’m not infected, and you don’t want to kill me in cold blood.”
Miles sobbed and wiped his face. Then looked back down the sight of his gun.
Castle took his gun and held it up in one hand as a show of surrender but slowly brought his other hand down around his back to where a handgun was tucked in his waist band. “Look kid… you can trust me. I don’t want to hurt you eit--”
“Stop!” Miles shouted again, “Take one more step… take one more step and you’ll get hurt!”
Castle grinned, “Look--” When Castle brought his foot down the snap under it was so fast he thought at first a bee had stung him. Until he felt the biting pain circling around his calf in the form of a steel bear trap. The military man fell to the ground, screaming in agony.
“Please… take the trap off and get out of here. And don’t come back.” Miles kept his gun trained on the man as he rolled around on the ground.
Castle pointed his assault rifle and opened fire on the redwood, splintering it with bullets. Miles ducked away and scurried to another tree, keeping low to the ground. Castle screamed and unloaded his clip until he was empty, then snatched the handgun from his pants.
“Don’t fire anymore bullets!” Miles called from somewhere, echoing through the trees. “Infected are starting to move nearby and if, and if you keep shooting you won’t have any bullets to get back to the others.”
Castle looked around, not seeing any infected freaks and fired wildly into the woods. “Fuck you, you little fuck! Fuck you! Arrgah!” The trap on his leg bit deeper and he winced and punched the ground. Then he fired again. Bang. Bang.
“Twelve, eleven, ten!” Miles counted out.
“Fuck you!”
Bang.
“Nine.”
Castle fired twice more when he saw a figure move through the trees but hit nothing.
“You have to go. You have to go back to your people.” Miles’ voice seemed to be coming from everywhere in the forest. The rustling of leaves grew louder and Castle looked back and forth, whipping his head around at any sound. He saw some figure standing in the distance and aimed his handgun.